It Still Stirs I walk past the light and I carry a bag of absence: myself. I pass landscapes and cities I talk to scared people who tirelessly scratch their unknown self floating in air days turn the foggy pages like layers of onion spurring up the tears. When did the first dawn shine in my eyes? Heavy and deaf things persistently support a shape and only music with its rhythmic undulation raises the shapeless fate to its most honorable moment: the perhaps. Ah, time’s such an opposition to memory when it points to the funny cry the futile excitement and when it turns treason into victory that it names movement. Try to remember this you student decaying in the light: how the face melts from within, how everything ends in the now and how emotion remains the passionate drop of ink in the bottomless.
Heroes Bright eyes of the heroes fledging and shoe-less feet splash in the fountain yet to be honored champions who haven’t managed to explore their hatred in front of throngs on tv monitors, in the mourner’s tears nothing moves as slow as history in this parched world that thirsts for rain and green olive leaves aspirations of a day born red in the eyelids of the terrorist and you said — there’s nothing here for us only a yellow death and our desire for glory
“I didn’t say I was going to give it to the government, I’m going to give it to Canada.” “And when are you going to do that?” “I have no idea. But one day I’ll do it and in the meantime that painting is going to hang on the wall.” Ken sketched out a large Inukshuk in the foreground of the new canvas with several smaller Inuksuit dwindling toward the horizon where the Canadian flag formed the backdrop. As he worked he decided to create twelve similar paintings – each one a flag painting, each with a symbol of the Arctic in the foreground and each forty by sixty inches. When the painting for the CBC was completed, Avril Lehan, a noted photographer, set up in the studio and shot brilliant large transparencies. Wayne Morrison gave the painting the title, “Yearning to Belong”. “All of Canada is yearning to belong,” he explained. “And we can’t seem to find a way of holding hands at these great distances.” Diane was indignant that Ken had given the painting to the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting rather than charge for it. “How can you keep giving paintings away?” she demanded. “I’m not really giving them away,” he said. “These are special causes. There is a value, but it’s not in money. It’s a different value. And I’m going to keep doing it so stop pestering me.” A large team of designers and advertising people had become involved in the campaign for the CBC and they asked Ken if Inuksuit really existed. “You’re a promoter – did you invent this thing?’ “Why don’t you folks just find out for yourselves and take the time to go up there and look?” he suggested. “Go to the Arctic.” Until someone proved otherwise, he claimed the Inukshuk was the oldest man-made thing on the continent, the Canadian flag, by contrast, was one of the newest and it was a grand omen that Canadians had finally made something for themselves. Everything else in Canada had been given to the country. “We need these things that we have made for ourselves,” he said. “Years ago when I went to Parliament to see the Minister of Foreign Affairs about a show in Spain, I noticed there was no hallmark on the building. All great buildings in Europe bear a hallmark, but when I looked around in Ottawa, everything I saw came from somewhere else. There was very little that was actually Canadian – born in this country. I think this image of the Inukshuk is perfect to go on a shield at the very entrance of Parliament. I would like that to happen after I find a way to give the first flag painting to Parliament.” Diane grew increasingly frustrated by the flood of rejections from the corporations she had approached for the funding of Isumataq. “I can’t stand it,” she said. “We keep sending out letters asking for support and not one single one comes back positive. They’re all negative!
At Dusk They wouldn’t have lasted long anyway. Experience over the years has made this clear. However, destiny came and hastily stopped them. The beautiful life was short-lived. But how strong the perfumes were, how exquisite the bed we lay in, what carnal delight we gave our bodies. An echo of the days of sensual pleasure, an echo of those days came close, something of your youth’s shared fire. I held a letter in my hands again, I read over until the light went out. And I went to the balcony in melancholy I went out to change my thoughts at least by seeing a bit of my beloved city, a bit of action in the street and in the shops.
Hellenic Canadian Literature 